The discussion about Common Core Standards continues. From an EdWeek piece titled, Both Value and Harm Seen in K-3 Common Standards:

The common academic standards proposed for state adoption outline what students must master by graduation in order to flourish in college or good jobs. Defining how they reach those goals, however, means spelling out what they must learn at each step of the way, starting in kindergarten. And those expectations are getting a mixed reception among early-childhood experts.

Concerns about standards for younger kids have been covered on this blog. What I found in this article is an alarming new turn:

The swirl of discussion among early-childhood educators about the K-12 common standards is taking on new dimensions, also, as the possibility emerges that they could be expanded to include children from birth to age 5. Leaders of the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers, which organized the drafting of the K-12 standards, told early-childhood experts in meetings and conference calls late last month that they hope to begin working on zero-to-5 standards within a couple of months, according to some of those who participated in the sessions.

Dane Linn, who is leading the work on the Common Core State Standards Initiative for the NGA, told Education Week that the NGA and the CCSSO are exploring ways to work with states and the early-childhood community to ensure that all children have the skills necessary for kindergarten. “We’d be naive to think standards are not a part of that,” he said.

The two groups do not envision “any sort of standardized process in the early years,” said the CCSSO’s executive director, Gene Wilhoit, but rather a “preparedness standard” that would describe the ways young children’s growth should be supported in all their developmental domains so they enter kindergarten on sound footing.

A “preparedness standard”…

“That there might be an imposition of hard academic skills pushed down from grade 1 to K to preschool, that’s not what we’re talking about at all,” he [Wilhout] said. “There are appropriate kinds of activities kids should be engaged in in order to be successful.”

Frankly, it is a bold claim to say that you know the “kind of activities” that should be engaged in “in order to be successful.” In my mind, it is either empty rhetoric or a huge over-reach and wrongheaded.

Read the whole piece here.

Core Standards for Young Children, Ctd.

The Alliance for Childhood doesn’t like the new Common Core Standards proposed by National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers.

From Alliance’s Newsroom:

Citing “Grave Concerns,” Experts Condemn Proposed Core Standards for Young Children

“The proposed standards conflict with compelling new research in cognitive science, neuroscience, child development, and early childhood education about how young children learn, what they need to learn, and how best to teach them in kindergarten and the early grades,” the statement says. It calls for the withdrawal of the proposed K-3 standards and the creation of a new consortium of teachers, scholars, and scientists to design more appropriate guidelines for early care and education.

The group argues that the proposed standards will greatly increase the amount of didactic instruction and standardized testing in literacy and math in the early grades, and will “crowd out” other important areas of learning. Young children “need to learn about families and communities, to take on challenges, and to develop social, emotional, problem-solving, self-regulation, and perspective-taking skills,” the statement says.

There is little evidence that the approach taken by the core standards for young children leads to later success in school, the group argues. Existing state standards have led to a heavy emphasis on skills-based instruction with little or no time devoted to child-initiated learning, according to recent research.

The Alliance suggests “parents, teachers, and others to register their concerns about the standards at the official site, www.corestandards.org.” They have issued:

An urgent call to action: Most Americans are unaware of the threat to healthy early childhood education posed by the K-12 “core standards” announced on March 10 by the NGA and CCSSO. Public comment on these national standards will close on April 2, an appallingly small window. The time to act is now.

What’s wrong with the standards: Existing state standards for kindergarten and the early grades have already ramped up rote learning, didactic instruction, and standardized testing and nearly driven out hands-on active learning and play. The new standards will intensify these inappropriate and unhealthy practices.

A few comments from the signers:

“The common core standards will perpetuate current ineffective methods rather than leading to much-needed reform in early education,” says Joan Almon, a former kindergarten teacher and Executive Director of the Alliance for Childhood. “Young children learn best through hands-on approaches that combine teacher-led activities with child-initiated learning and play.”

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“I support this statement whole-heartedly,” says Professor Katz, of the University of Illinois. “Research indicates that while early formal instruction of preschool and kindergarten children may appear to show good test results at first, in the long term, in follow-up studies, such children have had no advantage. On the contrary, especially in the case of boys, subjection to early formal instruction increases their tendency to distance themselves from the goals of schools, and to drop out of it, either mentally or physically.”

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“The people who wrote these standards do not appear to have any background in child development or early childhood education,” says Professor Emerita Stephanie Feeney of the University of Hawaii, another signer. “As written, these standards could have a very detrimental effect on young children. I strongly urge that they be rewritten to reflect what is known about young children’s development.”

These standards matter to homeschoolers because “48 states, 2 territories and the District of Columbia committed to developing a common core of state standards.” When the inevitable calls for more regulation of homeschooling come, it will be demanded that homeschoolers be held accountable to these standards too.

The Alliance’s Joint Statement of Early Childhood Health and Education Professionals can be read here (pdf). You can also read statements from 35 signers here (pdf).

‘Grave Concerns’ about Core Standards for Young Children

Education Week’s site has another piece on the future of education, this one on assessements:

Led by Stanford University professor Linda Darling-Hammond, a panel of experts outlined a comprehensive system that includes summative and formative tests of higher-order thinking skills, reflecting a marketplace that they say places increasing value on such skills.

They urged a move away from of multiple-choice tests that demand factual recall, toward the development of a set of deeper, more analytical questions, tasks, and projects that ask students to solve and discuss complex problems.

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Such assessments, Ms. Darling-Hammond said, can be “of, for, and as learning.” They can “embody” content standards, she said, not just approximate them. Because teachers would help create and score the assessments, and the assessments would be pegged to good-quality content standards, an aligned teaching-and-learning system would take shape that would help teachers adjust instruction in real time and help district and state administrators plot longer-term education strategy, the experts said.

I was along with what I was reading as a recognition of the limits of tests and respect for learning styles. But, when I got to, “assessments would be pegged to good-quality content standards” the warning bells went off and I immediately cooled to the idea.

Common Standards

The portrait of assessment, fleshed out in a paper by Ms. Darling-Hammond that draws on assessment practices in the United States and abroad, was presented at a discussion organized by two Washington-based groups, the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers. They have enlisted the support of 48 states to devise common content standards designed to ensure college and career readiness.

From the paper cited, Assessment Systems that Support High-Quality Learning:

Over a number of years, CCSSO [Council of Chief State School Officers] has been working with key stakeholders to develop a set of principles for student assessment systems. These principles suggest that the student assessment process should be considered as a system that supports a variety of purposes, such as informing learning and instruction, determining progress, measuring achievement, and providing partial accountability information.

I do not intend to try and unpack Ms. Darling-Hammond’s paper. However, with what seems to be an underlying deference for “key stakeholders” and a blinding lack of respect for kids and families, I am concerned that “content standards” is a pandora’s box in waiting.

Read the EdWeek piece here.

Experts Lay Out Vision for Future Assessments

A Fordham Institute’s report, Stars by Which to Navigate: Scanning National and International Standards in 2009, has brought The Common Core State Standards Initiative back into the news.

Proposed National Academic Standards Sidestep Debate
By Nick Anderson

The Common Core State Standards Initiative, as it is known, is an attempt to fashion de facto national standards for math and English without calling them that. President Obama praises it as an effort to raise what are now wildly uneven benchmarks from state to state. His administration might provide money to help states develop tests aligned with the standards — if they are adopted. But the Education Department is not drafting the standards, and Congress will have no vote on approval.

National standards not led by Federal Government? Then led by who? Education Week has extensive coverage of the Common Core Standards:

Standards Aren’t Enough
By Susan H. Fuhrman, Lauren Resnick, & Lorrie Shepard

Before anyone objects to a Washington takeover of the elementary school down the street, it’s important to note that the standards effort was initiated by two organizations of state leaders: the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers. Forty-eight states are participating in developing the standards. The standards are voluntary, however, and not even all of those states are likely to embrace them.

Nonetheless, the Obama administration will probably have leverage to nudge states to get on board. States will apply this winter for $4.35 billion in federal education money as part of the Race to the Top initiative that’s meant to encourage innovations, such as programs to turn around the most troubled schools. Even though the federal government did not develop these standards, only those states that embrace them are expected to be eligible to receive the money.

At this point the Common Core Standards are not a homeschooling issue. However, given the driving forces behind this initiative, the research, the resources, plus a new administration, there is a very good chance you will see these Common Core Standards being debated in your state soon.

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You’ll need to register to read Standards Aren’t Enough. You can also read more about The Common Core State Standards Initiative at the Standards site: http://www.corestandards.org/.

Common Core Standards in the News